Hat tip right off the bat to my old pal Drew Fairservice at theScore.com for giving me the idea of ranking athletes who share names. I don’t know why, but I’ve decided to start this silly offseason theme with Andre. Pro Football Reference tells us that 106 men named Andre or Andre’ have played NFL football. Here are the top 10.

1. Andre Reed: A Pro Football Hall of Famer with seven Pro Bowls and 951 catches, which ranks 11th all time.

2. Andre Tippett: Another Hall of Famer and a two-time All-Pro. With exactly 100 career sacks, he’s the only Andre to hit the triple digits in that category.

3. Andre Johnson: A seven-time Pro Bowler and two-time first-team All-Pro, his numbers are already in Reed’s range. Johnson is a productive season or two away from leapfrogging Reed and Tippett.

4. Andre Rison: The five-time Pro Bowler is one of only 40 players with 10,000 receiving yards. He also had 84 touchdowns, ranking 18th on the all-time list.

5. Andre Carter: He’s only been to one Pro Bowl, but this Andre has 80.5 career sacks and 18 forced fumbles in 147 starts.

6. Andre Gurode: The five-time Pro Bowler was one of the best centers in the game for nearly a decade.

7. Andre Smith: Year in and year out, Smith is graded by Pro Football Focus as one of the best offensive tackles in the game. We’re projecting a bit here, because he hasn’t been to a Pro Bowl, but he’s only 27.

8. Andre Collins: A superb all-around linebacker who deserved a Pro Bowl nod or two during a five-year span with the Redskins in which he had eight picks, 18.5 sacks and 579 tackles.

9. Andre Dyson: No Andre has as many interceptions as Dyson’s 22. He also scored four touchdowns in 80 starts over seven seasons.

10. Andre’ Goodman: Never anything special, but Goodman had 19 picks in 95 starts over a 10-year span.

Honorable mentions: Andre Ellington and Andre Roberts — One solid rookie season just isn’t enough, but Ellington did average 5.5 yards per carry in Arizona in 2013, so look for him to break onto this list when we never do it again. Roberts, who coincidentally also played for the Cardinals last season, needs a couple more solid campaigns before being considered.

About Brad Gagnon

Brad Gagnon has been passionate about both sports and mass media since he was in diapers -- a passion that won't die until he's in them again. Based in Toronto, he's worked as a national NFL blog editor at theScore.com, a producer and writer at theScore Television Network and a host, reporter and play-by-play voice at Rogers TV. His work has also appeared at CBSSports.com, Deadspin, FoxSports.com, The Guardian, The Hockey News and elsewhere at Comeback Media, but his day gig has him covering the NFL nationally for Bleacher Report.